Apart (kind of) from its surly hero and his surlier mentor, “Blade II”
is in the best tradition of a particular kind of action movie – the bad
guys vs. the worse guys. Imagine “The Wild Bunch” with vampires – which
won’t give you the faintest idea of what “Blade II” looks like, but you
may get a sense of how it feels.

The original 1996 film “Blade” was based on a Marvel comic book about
the eponymous anti-hero, half-vampire and half-human, and completely
filled with loathing for bloodsuckers. Wesley Snipes’ considerable
martial arts skills made him a good choice to play Blade, who has made
a life’s work of hunting the undead, battling them with his fists
innate supernatural strength (from his vamp half), much-studied
fighting skills, a very sharp sword and anything that makes for a
satisfying explosion.

“Blade I” had a kickass opening sequence in a disco that showered blood
all over the dance floor as prelude to a mass vampire attack that was
countered by our hero. Following this, though, Blade’s relentless
grumpiness and the undead-serious plot about political control within
the vampire world made for a movie that had nifty special effects,
great action and a lot of dead (or maybe undead) patches.

“Blade II” is considerably more enjoyable. For starters, while Snipes’
Blade still can’t be described as cheerful, now that he’s resolved some
issues (as seen in the earlier film), he is now capable of cracking a
joke and/or a smile occasionally. Screenwriter David S. Goyer, who also
penned the first film, brings us back to the world of internal strife
within the vampire world, but this time, the dispute is played out much
more through action than dialogue. Yes, the villain does have one of
those plans that seems designed to self-destruct once we know what it
is, but by the time this critical revelation transpires, Goyer and
director Guillermo Del Toro have provided so much kinetic movement and
madly wonderful horror imagery that we’re having a great time anyway.

The Vampire Nation, normally Blade’s worst enemies, surprise the
Daywalker by coming to him for help. It seems a new strain of vampire,
the Reaper, has evolved. These creatures attack both humans and
vampires, and if the primary carrier, Nomak (Luke Goss), is not
destroyed, the entire world will be infected and turned within about a
month. Blade warily agrees to ally himself with the Blood Pack, a group
of vampire super-commandoes that, before the rise of the Reapers, had
been preparing to go up against Blade. This team goes into battle
against the Reapers, which move and kill with as much agility and
inventive gore as Del Toro and the effects team can provide.

“Blade II” is punctuated with little breather spaces in the action that
allow for face-offs between Blade, his human crew (Kris Kristofferson
and Norman Reedus) and the Blood Pack. Ron Perlman as erstwhile Pack
leader Rheinhardt is particularly good, exuding the perfect arrogant,
efficient attitude for a blood-eating mercenary. Del Toro and his
editing team somehow make it feel as if there are no pauses – the movie
pumps on adrenaline, with kicking, biting, shooting, detonating (and a
few otherworldly autopsies) at every turn.

The DVD two-disc set has an impressive array of extras. The second disc
has an 85-minute (not counting branching segments) making-of
documentary, “The Blood Pact,” complete with 5.1 sound, and branching
segments – that, in a stroke of courtesy, can be accessed separately
from the menu by viewers who don’t want to have to watch it with
trigger finger on the remote, waiting for the glyph to show up. The
documentary is thorough and informative, with lots of great on-set
footage, but for the really fun version of making the movie, check out
the center-channel audio commentary track by director Del Toro and
producer Peter Frankfurt. After introducing himself and Frankfurt, Del
Toro explains the commentary thusly: “We’re here to entertain you while
you find out why the fuck this channel has these two assholes talking
instead of the movie.” They are thereafter fearless in pointing out
what they perceive of as flaws – “Looks like a video game!” Del Toro
laughs about a fight in Chapter 5 (it really doesn’t) – and
forthrightly generous with praise where they feel it is warranted.
Forget Blade – these are the guys you really want to party with. Del
Toro and Frankfurt are even more trenchant in their (optional) joint
commentary on the approximately 24 minutes of alternate/deleted scenes.
Definitely stay tuned for the explanation of why one scene had to be
altered due to overly realistic art direction (for once, nothing to do
with gore).

The feature disc also comes with a center-channel audio commentary
track from actor Snipes and screenwriter Goyer, which in agreeable and
informative, albeit a lot tamer by comparison. Goyer interviews Snipes
a bit about his martial arts background, which is intriguing.
Additional features on the supplemental disc include a two-channel
sound music video, “Child of the Wild West,” from Cypress Hill and Roni
Size, which marries lively rap with an oddly amusing through-line about
surveillance vans tracking what seems to be an outbreak of people
listening to music on headphones.

The filmmakers deserve kudos for setting the story in the place where
it was filmed – Prague – and letting the characters occasionally speak
the local language in subtitles, instead of trying to dress the place
up as some improbably anonymous U.S. city and insisting that everybody
speaks English at all times. The filmmakers are smart enough to save
suspension of disbelief for more important things.

“Blade II” provides a lot of wow-look-at-that thrills and has an
express-train pace to go with its ferocious visuals. It doesn’t engage
us emotionally as much as it might, but it’s still a hell of a lot of
fun.